On a shoestring project part 17

  By God I don't believe Christmas is almost here! Oh how time flies. Anyway, here is a little Christmas video for you guys. Hope you like it, I had fun making it:-) It's also another way to come up with an video, without big budget. Obviously this kind of cartoon won't suit every song, but I think it works here pretty nice.
GoAnimate.com: Glory to the world by jpkallio

GoAnimate.com!
  The site of all this snow in Dublin makes me think of winters back home. Actually you know, I partly financed my first valve amp by shoveling snow for a whole winter. It was a Laney Pro-Tube Lead AOR Series 50 watt 1x12 combo. Loud, heavy (I could just about carry it my self) and built like a tank. I had to part from it when I moved over to Ireland. Still miss it...
  I'm going to go back to basics here for a little while. Lets talk about band practice. I never had a big budget to hire professional full time musicians for this project. And I can tell you, that in my mind this has been a good thing. Don't get me wrong, these guys are very professional in their manner of working and playing. What I mean is they have full time jobs, and I need to allow for this in the schedule of the project. So we have been rehearsing on average once a week for almost three months. I find it is great thing to give the band members creative freedom. It just makes the whole project more ours than just mine. And it is a great motivational tool as well. I know my self, if I was to step in to project, where I was just to play what I was told to, I might do it, but there better be a nice paycheck at the end of the day. But when I have creative investment in any project, it becomes partly mine, and I know you will get better performance out of me. This has been very much the case with the guys. And it all comes down to the same thing again, you need to have great team around you! And I could not be happier at the moment:-)
  I try to make demo recordings of the songs before I bring them to the rehearsal, so the guys can get familiar with them. Then we break the songs down to parts and work out each part individually. Then we glue it all together and make sure all the parts ease smoothly to next one. Then we let the song to brew until the next rehearsal. Usually by then all of us have some new arrangement ideas to try out. And usually after couple of rehearsals the song gets its final shape. Then it's all down to playing it through enough times that it is committed to muscle memory (meaning your fingers know what to do and where to go with out thinking, meaning some one drags you up in the middle of the night and puts an instrument in your hand and you can play it without thinking twice).
  In the past working with Sliotar I found playing songs live in front of audience for few weeks does add extra depth to them, and tightens them up nicely. But then again when you have played a piece of music about hundred time, it is little more difficult to change something in the recording stage. So now I try to find the nice balance in rehearsing enough to get the recording done smoothly, but with out the tracks going stale from over playing. This also is something, that I think every band have their own way and I know even in the past, when I worked in different bands (and there has been many...) every one of them had unique way of practising. But still having some structure instead of just playing through songs is what separates weekend players from pros.
  It's also good tip for guitar practise as well, break things down. For me the guitar is a never ending learning curve. And I still try to practice or play every day. What I do is take something I want to work on, weather it is a difficult chord change, a solo lick, rhythmic pattern or a scale, I practice it through with metronome for a five minute set. Then move on to something else, and I might come back to it later. So if one of your new years resolutions is to learn to play guitar, try this. Also I am more than happy to give any tips on this as well, just Email me at: jpkallio@hotmail.com
  Speaking of new years resolutions, do you have any? Unfortunately for me, part of being a guitar player is a constant search for tone. I know there are musicians who buy an high quality instrument, amp and maybe some pedals, and they are happy with this. All I can say to that is: good for you. Even when I am happy with my tone, there's always room for improvement. So once again part of my new years resolution is a shopping list... But hey, that's part of the game. As long as you find a good balance between the technology and a skill.
  Now I must head out to do some last minute Christmas shopping, and try to avoid the guitar shops;-) As always, would love to hear your comments and feedback. Have a great holiday every one:-) And more to come straight after Christmas.